Warshaw: Master the action of Wednesday in MLS

Wednesday night, there were three games, all with implications for the playoffs. Here are some notes on the six teams to complete the evening:

For United, except for Wayne Rooney who made me write "omfg" to three different friends after his winning free kick …

• D.C. should be satisfied with the flexibility available to him in choosing alignment. They can play different types of players in the same formation for different needs. Wednesday night, Chris Durkin, Zoltan Stieber and Nick DeLeon started. On Sunday, it could be Junior Moreno, Ulises Segura and Paul Arriola in their place. Alternation of queues, alternation of skills, without loss of overall quality. As a result, the team can retain its style and general principles while adapting to specific opponents.

Variable small but important for DC: the more they give Acosta a seemingly meaningless pass, the more dangerous they become with their possession. Keeps the ball moving + reinforces the confidence of its orchestrator.

– Bobby Warshaw (@ bwarshaw14) October 18, 2018

• We do not think enough about the possession of what players feel. Touching the ball is good. Whenever a player puts his foot on the football, he feels a surge of happiness. Sometimes you have to pass the ball just to make the players feel good. it creates energy and confidence. Even if this individual pass does not matter, the fact that the player feels happy and confident will import it when playing more decisively. One of the reasons that Luciano Acosta has been so good in the last two months (aside from the Rooney guy) is that he has had a lot of little extra touches, seemingly useless.
• For Toronto FC, the biggest difference between Michael Bradley in 2018 and Michael Bradley in 2017 seems to be his body's ability to do "difficult" things. Difficult things on a football pitch are not tekkers skills; these are the tasks you have to dig into your heart to bring them to a successful conclusion. Imagine these last three pumps when your arms are shaking and you feel like you can not push anymore and you need to make a conscious decision to overcome the pain. In football, these are acts such as defensive transitions, which consist of pushing a toe a second or third time in a challenge and moving your feet when you try to beat you 1v1.
• Watch this foul from Bradley leading to Rooney's free kick. It does not move the feet to get a better angle of defense to cut the angle of pass; He does not seem interested in fighting with Yamil Asad for the next two yards. He makes the easy decision.

I'm going to die on the hill that Bradley has been underestimated by fans of the US national team for years. But it was not the same in 2018.

• Lucas Janson was a good addition for Toronto. He is a different type of player for them. For as amazing as they were last year, they had no one with his change of pace and energy off the bench. He did not score Wednesday, but he stressed the central defenders of D.C. It is unclear whether Janson is a good winner, but it is certainly a nice third option behind Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore.

Victor Rodriguez and Handwalla Bwana scored the goals tonight for Seattle, so …

• Rodriguez finally shows why the Sounders have made a TAM level investment. He is comfortable on the ball and uses his low center of gravity to sneak past the defenders. More importantly for this specific team of Sounders, it performs intelligent and dangerous outputs. I emphasize the word dangerous. Cristian Roldan and Nico Lodeiro have an excellent move, but they are not usually directly dangerous for goals. Lodeiro and Roldan often travel to find the ball or to make room for their teammates, and Rodriguez turns this action into a goal. Rodriguez offers counter-moves to other players in his line on the field, which makes the Sounders more dangerous.
• Like Rodriguez, Bwana offers something unique that the Sounders might need in the playoffs. Bwana can change a part. he is fast, fearless and unpredictable. It is not yet clean enough to debut, but it has the ability to live decisive moments. If Seattle needs a goal late in the game, Bwana is a good option.
• Seattle is now three points behind Sporting KC and LAFC, and Seattle and Houston and San Jose are on the left of the calendar. SKC plays in Dallas and CFL, while LAFC plays Sporting and Vancouver. Considering that at least one of the SKC or LAFC players must lose points when he plays against each other, Seattle has a real advantage: getting at least one advantage on his court for the knockout round.
• Orlando scored! It was their first goal in more than five games. And they actually carried the match in the second half and perhaps deserved an equalizer.
• Matt Doyle sent me a message after Seattle's first goal: "Dude, Orlando's defense …". He is right. I do not have much to say about Orlando for the moment. Let's describe how this conversation (screaming match) was probably played in the locker room at half-time. Here is the goal to refresh your memory:

That's Scott Sutter at the right back, Shane O'Neill in the center right at the back, Lamine Sane in center left and Will Johnson at the left back.

O'Neill: "Lamine, where were you going ?! Why did you hang out here !?

Sane: "What do you want me to do ?! The guy has more than Will! If I did not slip, this runner was at the goal! You should have seen this and moved the center to cover the space!

O'Neill: "I could not slip! I had an attacker on my right! If I had approached you, the guy on my right would have been in it!

At what point should the two central defenders have turned to Sutter to shout "And what were you doing? !!!"

What Sutter would not have a good answer for. There is no reason to be so far from the weak side. The basic rule says that the defender on the weak side should be inside an imaginary line from the far post to a game like this. If the ball goes to an attacker so far, the defense can handle it. If Sutter is closer to the center, he gets closer to the Seattle player who catches O'Neill in his place, then O'Neill could move to the center and follow Rodriguez's pass.

We are too critical of professional players for certain things. It's something for which we should be more critical towards the players. This is a basic tactical mistake of Sutter and the defense of Orlando City.

• After 60 minutes, I said to myself, "You know what will condemn SKC in the end? They do not have a player with little skill or quality to do something from scratch when they do not seem to score. Then Yohan Croizet knocked at home an 18-year-old curler who wanted to match the match. This denies and accentuates my initial anxiety. Croizet was brought into this team to become this guy. They have a lot of very good players, but they have no magic type (think for example: Carlos Vela, Zlatan, Nico Lodeiro, Diego Valeri, etc.). SKC does not have the artist who sees things that others do not see. Croizet was supposed to be. And his goal Wednesday night reminds us, but also how rarely he does it.

SKCs are good about everything. But they have no one to rely on with confidence when they need it. The story says that you usually need this guy at some point in the playoffs.

• At the moment we thought Diego Rubio had won the starting position, Khiry Shelton made a huge game for Sporting to get his decisive goal. It was a prototype piece of Shelton – not pretty, and more for his teammate than for himself. Then he added another help in the waste time. In his second appearance in three months, Shelton may have reaffirmed in the first conversation.
• BONUS: 16-year-old Gianluca Busio scored her first goal in MLS. He owes a milkshake to Johnny Russell.

16-year-old Gianluca Busio scores her first goal in MLS to make it 3-1! #VANvSKC https://t.co/GmtKb8dYDC

– Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 18, 2018

• On the Vancouver side, oof. Talk about the missed opportunity. Vancouver controlled his own destiny. Yes, the trip was difficult, with three teams in the playoffs. But a win on Wednesday could have tied them to points for 6th place in the West. and they went up 1-0, and they led up to the 60th minute. It's hard to bear. The Caps can still come in, but they need help now.